Latest from Jessica Wehrman

When the Republican-controlled U.S. House this week approved an extension of a National Security Agency program that permits the agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between foreigners abroad and Americans, local Republicans Warren Davidson of Troy and Jim Jordan of Urbana were among the 164 lawmakers to vote no. The bill, which now...

As politicians from both parties weighed in on reports that President Donald Trump referred to countries such as Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole” countries, two key Ohio Republicans responded in wildly different ways. Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci, who dropped out of the GOP gubernatorial primary Thursday in order to run for the U...

Even as Ohio advisers to “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance say Vance is seriously considering launching a bid against Sen. Sherrod Brown for the U.S. Senate, Republicans privately are concerned that the author, who has never before held public office, may have problems that would prove disastrous to his bid. Key among their...

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan expressed deep misgivings about the legality of an Ohio election law which they argued uses a person’s failure to vote to set in motion a process to strike the voter from the election rolls. In oral arguments today in the U.S. Supreme Court, Sotomayor and Kagan sharply questioned Ohio solicitor...

From the outside, the building is nondescript, your typical medical office nestled near an acupuncturist, a doctor’s office and steps from a CVS pharmacy. From the inside, however, Bill Askinazi says he is watching medical miracles. An example: The 35-year-old man, toes on both feet pointed inward, hobbling in on crutches. He&rsquo...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is known for bucking his party’s top leaders, but a different Ohioan could enter the presidential race in 2020 after getting notice for taking on one of his party’s most visible and powerful figures. It’s been a year since Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles, launched a quixotic — and ultimately losing &mdash...

For the third time since September, Congress temporarily agreed to a stopgap funding measure to avoid a partial federal government shutdown at midnight Friday that would have impacted thousands of civilian workers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. But the temporary spending measures have hamstrung the Defense Department through lost training...

Congress Thursday appeared poised to effectively evade the last-minute threat of a government shutdown, with the House passing a bill to keep the government open through Jan. 19 and the Senate poised to follow suit late Thursday or early Friday. The spending bill – which included a $2.85 billion down payment aimed at keeping the federal...

Sen. Sherrod Brown last week called for Senate passage of his bill to provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with new technology to detect fentanyl before it enters the United States. Brown, D-Ohio, was moved to reiterate his concerns after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing Ohio had the second highest...

Sen. Rob Portman is urging the Internal Revenue Service to act quickly to change its withholding tables in the aftermath of congressional package of a bill overhauling the tax code. In a Dec. 20 letter to IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter, Portman urged the IRS to “take immediate action to update the relevant guidance documents...

After reading news stories about the Dover Air Force Base mortuary sending cremated veterans’ remains to a Maryland landfill in 2011, U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers was horrified. Then he decided to do something to make sure it would never happen again. Stivers, an Upper Arlington Republican who has served more than 30 years in the Ohio Army...

Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, hailed the final version of the bill to overhaul the tax code that was unveiled Friday, while Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown denounced the measure as a tax cut for “millionaires and corporations.” With the House and Senate expected to vote next week on the package, lawmakers...

The defeat of Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama Tuesday is not only a sharp rebuke against President Donald Trump but serves as a warning to Republicans such as Josh Mandel of Ohio against fully embracing Trump and the arch-conservative voters who support him. Mandel, who is seeking next year’s Republican nomination for...

Omarosa Manigault Newman was not only one of the high-profile faces at the Trump White House — a reality TV star who became a celebrity on “The Apprentice,” — she was also one of the administration’s most prominent Ohioans. But now she’s gone. Her resignation was announced Wednesday by the White House,...

Embattled Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota is expected to resign Thursday after Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and a wave of Democrats called for him to step down in the aftermath of allegations that Franken sexually harassed seven women before being elected to the Senate in 2008. Franken has scheduled a news conference Thursday where...

A Greenville native who is a senior official at the United Nations is scheduled to meet with North Korean officials Tuesday in an effort to broker a diplomatic solution to Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them. Jeffrey Feltman, undersecretary-general for political affairs at the United...

Three sources speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday said that former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray will enter the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination no later than next week. Cordray resigned his post earlier this month as director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Other Democrats who have declared...

The federal program that provides health insurance to nearly 9 million low income children — including 219,000 in Ohio — expired two months ago, and states are beginning to panic that they’ll have to cut services to families beginning early next year. Nearly half of all states — including Ohio — will have run...

So far this year, 41 U.S. House members — about 9 percent of the body — have announced they are resigning, retiring or seeking another office. And there is still more than a year to go in the two-year term. Congress always has turnover, but the pace established this year could mean the number leaving is the highest in decades...

If success in Congress is measured by the bills a lawmaker passes, then it’s been a lackluster year for Ohio’s 16 House members and two senators. But then, it hasn’t exactly been a banner year for Congress, either. The state’s congressional delegation this year has served as the original sponsors of 304 bills &mdash...